Trump just gave himself a $10 billion dollar slush fund from taxpayers. Who stopped him? No one. This amount of money will buy you one great den.
Noem wants luxury jets from the taxpayer.
So. Much. Winning.
Had the Democrats ran a half decent candidate, they could easily have won. But they're just not capable of doing that.
“If only all those idiots on the right and in the center could see they should vote for the bumbling but well-intentioned candidate over the obvious liars and thieves” is an explanation that feels good to tell yourself, but also incredibly patronizing and prevents actually understanding why people vote the way they do.
I find the arrogance of the left pretty abhorrent. I also despise aspects of the right, but boy does the left rub me the wrong way.
Personally, I don't expect people on the right to come around. I am mystified by people on the center who looked at Trump and Harris and decided Trump was the way to go, or even just didn't care. If you'd like to enlighten me why they did that, I'd be interested.
My real confusion is people on the left who did this. They decided that Harris didn't say the right things about Israel, or they were upset at not having a primary, or they were still upset about Bernie, and decided to stay home. That is baffling.
The short answer to your question is that the Democratic establishment in general and Harris in particular repeatedly lied throughout the Biden administration, culminating in the bald-faced lie that Joe Biden was completely competent. This was done with the attitude of “well what are you going to do? Vote for the other team? Don’t be ridiculous.” There were so, so many other things throughout the Biden administration, it felt (feels) like a race to the bottom.
So Trump, who is notorious for lying, won. To be fair to Republicans, Trumps lies are more like crazy exaggerations sprinkled with outright bullshit which somehow is more palatable than being gaslit.
If the defense of the Democrats is “Well look at how bad Trump is!” it should at least be acknowledged that is one of the worst defenses possible. And in general, if my options are to be stabbed by person A twice, or by person B once but person B expects me to be grateful, I might just go with person A.
The end result is we will keep toggling between the two parties until one of them decides to run using sane people. I sincerely hope that will be the Democrats this year.
He already was president for 4 years, which - aside from a lot of crazy talk - was a pretty stable and prosperous time.
OTOH, Harris had no track record to talk about, and hardly impressed anyone in any way.
you did NOT just write this seriously???! :) I hope you are being as sarcastic as one can be or did you sleep through it. just check how much of the total national debt comes from his first term… it is arguably the least “stable and prosperous” 4 years any American who is alive has ever seen
It is easy to be the President when shit's easy. I don't follow politics at all anymore, stopped right around the time someone like Donald was able to get a nomination for a political party in the United States so this isn't a liberal bashing Donald, these are just facts that he was about as worse of a President in his first four years as we've ever had. The jury is still out for these 4, we'll analyze that in 2029 :)
Harris wasn't the worst possible replacement, sure. But the Democrats have several very competent governors who could have done a lot better, but that was not considered.
Like the man said, I'm definitely tired of all the winning. Emoluments clause be damned.
Swamps are rich ecosystems with incredible natural beauty and diversity. Draining a swamp is extraordinarily bad in general, even if good for wealthy property developers.
Ironically, it seems that "drain the swamp" turns out to be an apt metaphor for what Trump and that gang have been doing, as promised.
Technically, no, they did not come up with this thought on their own. It's been heavily propagandized that 'voting does no good, so just stay home". I just want to point that out as it's an active attack on American voters.
Joe Average the Trump voter got to be the way they are from a "grooming" process of some kind.
Who would Trump have ever have picked up something like that from?
By the time Trump's face was on TV every day it was already full-blown abuse.
Also, I think a big element was the rallys.
Once Trump was confirmed as the big loser in 2020, he immediately started his comeback, live and in person.
Constant rallys for 4 years, real slim attendance at first but eventually getting a baseline crowd who would make gatherings seem more popular than they were. Traveling from one rally to another like many Taylor Swift fans do, but all Trump rallied about was hate.
That's the crowd that he grew by testing different targets of hate, running it up the flagpole to see who salutes.
By the time Biden started campaigning in earnest, Trump already had four solid years behind him and his pitch was tested and honed well enough to draw a much more loving and obedient crowd. Of haters. Nothing less would be appropriate.
Giving thousands of disgruntled voters a full "live concert" or "game day" experience like they never had before, making a strong impression that lasted and put him over the top. Across the country.
And the Democrats did nothing like this. Biden was already moving slow and was never an emotion-driven attention-getter, plus he was busy doing the job he was elected to do and nobody dreamed of putting him on the road full-time like Trump.
It might have taken more than 4 years of Democrat rallys to compensate also, so starting early makes a big difference.
By now there's not 4 years remaining and they're still not doing squat.
Success at the midterms is more critical than ever and that's much less than a year away too.
Dems need to bring forward a new personality now that they can rally behind all the way to the top. Get the show on the road and pack those stadiums constantly, similar to "modern" Trump voters, an actual platform is not necessary.
None of the strategists who dropped the ball for Biden and Harris seem to be doing anything different yet.
Why continue with the same failed machine that is proven not to work against built-up MAGA hate?
If Democrats aren't going to hate back they're surely going to need to express their dissatisfaction a lot more strongly.
Every false move that Trump makes would be plenty of new fodder, an unending well of new topics to rouse the crowds' congealment around when they come up. If a nationwide tour were constantly underway, these could be added to the pitch while taken in stride, and the momentum could be made to increase each time Trump makes a new foible which the opposition can focus on to gauge the popularity impact.
That may still not be enough and it may take longer than it should so you've got to start earlier rather than too late.
Ideally a new attractive personality will bypass the failed old Dem machine, and with nothing but positive aspirations from the podium, trigger a natural gut response from the crowd, whatever stadium the tour takes them to.
Could anything be more appropriate than thousands of more patriotic ralliers than ever cheering for the Democrats in unison, spontaneously repeating the rallying call "Lock him up !" ?
People that are actually leftist don't vote because there's nobody that represents them. Most Democrat politicians are centrist.
But it’s of course a hellishly complex problem
On the seemingly rare occasions that a democrat gets into the oval office, they spend most of their time on social/environmental issues that extend to all voters, but are fought at every turn. We desperately need a reformed political system. The only way that will happen is if the American voting public will get off their cans and put forth the effort to learn civics and then realize that their opinions must be tempered with reason.